A Little Way Up The Road
by Oracle Glass
Summary: Clint asks an old friend for some assistance. There's a woman he needs to find, and it's going to be tricky. Title from Stevie Ray Vaughan, "Life By the Drop." "Time's been between us, a means to an end God, it's good to be walking together my friend" Written for charmingalias4 in the Be-Compromised's Secret Santa 2013 exchange.


"'S been what, three, four years? You look like you're holding up."

"Five years, actually. And clearly civilian life agrees with you. You're not bleeding from anywhere."

"Civilian, but still in the game, Barton. One that lets me sleep better at night, too."

Clint cocked his head and studied him.

"Good. I don't know that I can say the same, exactly. But I'm good where I am."

Eliot grinned. "I bet. You're with the gang that has all the fun toys these days."

At Clint's frown, he laughed. "Just because I'm not running the old ops doesn't mean I forget all my sources, Barton. Or that I forgot how to add two and two. You got a codename?"

Clint shifts, embarrassed, and Eliot crows. "I knew it! What do they call you? Robin Hood? Please tell me they call you Robin Hood."

Clint mumbles something and Eliot leans forward exaggeratedly. "What was that, Barton? I didn't quite hear you."

"Hawkeye," says Clint. "They call me Hawkeye."

Eliot leans back, a little disappointed.

"That's not bad, actually. So all that trick shot stuff paid off, huh? The first time I saw you pull that shit in in the field, I thought they had teamed me up with a certified lunatic."

Clint rocks back in his chair and laughs. They're in a quiet pub in London, and since both men brought various gadgets along to discourage any electronic eavesdropping, they can talk freely. "Listen, you can take the boy out of the circus…"

Eliot shakes his head and takes a swig of his drink. "So this is fun and all, but I'm willing to bet you didn't look me up to bullshit over a beer."

"As much as I'd have liked that, I'm on the job. Need information. I know…" he trails off, and frowns. "I know this is a part of your life you'd rather forget, and I wouldn't go digging if you weren't my best lead. While you were working for Moreau, did you ever run across a woman named Natasha Romanoff?"

Were they under observation, Eliot's expression would have not appeared to change. But Clint, sitting just across the table, sees hiss face tighten, sees his fingertips whiten around his pint glass.

"Digging in dangerous territory, Barton," he says, and for a moment, Clint prepares to dodge a punch. He's seen Eliot go over a table before, and the guy on the other side did not enjoy what followed.

It's only a moment, however. Eliot sucks in a wobbly breath, exhales slowly, lets his glass go and pushes it to the side. "You going after the Widow, Barton?" he drawls. "Sheee-it. You're definitely after bigger game these days."

Clint shrugs, and leans back in his seat. "Got a few more tricks up my sleeve these days. Like you said, all the good toys. She's killed a few too many people that my group had interests with. I got tapped to see if I could put a stop to her."

"By which you mean..."

"If it comes to that. They'd rather have her alive, maybe coax her into spilling some details of all the stuff she's been up to. But if it's not possible..." He shrugs again, tapping his fingers on the side of his glass. "I'll be putting an end to her career, one way or the other."

Eliot nods. "So she was behind that business in Zagreb? Looking back, it did have her fingerprints all over it."

"She works internationally, but a pattern analysis of her movements indicates she usually goes to ground in Eastern Europe between jobs. We know she worked for Moreau once or twice, although not in a few years. We suspect she's in his territory now, whether or not he knows it. She could blend in easily, probably has a safehouse or two. I have a few possibilities, but too many to track down individually. I hoped you could help me narrow them down some. I'm not asking you to go in with me all the way. Just help me get pointed in the right direction."

"Wouldn't help you all the way. I'm not on that road anymore. But I'll help. I can give you two weeks. Then I head back to my crew and you're on your own."

Clint nods. "More than I hoped for."

They take the train, both of them naturally prepared with passports designating them as American travelers, average types who only merit a casual glance by customs officers and police at borders. Eliot wears an obnoxious Stetson and his accent slides from its usual drawl to something more Texan. "People see the hat, hear the accent, and that's it," he tells an amused Clint. "Better than anything to stay invisible. 'Oh, there was a cowboy man,' he says in a bad German accent. "'He has hat! Is all I know!'"

"Well hell, nobody is going to remember me. I'll just be the guy who was with the guy with the hat. I'll leave my fake moustache and hair dye at home next time."

Eliot shakes his head sadly. "Lazy, Barton. Just like that time in Lagos. I do all the hard work and you reap the benefits."

Clint laughs. "Let me remind you that I saved your ass in Lagos. That Mossad agent thought you were a turncoat soldier taking up a little gun running for extra income. She nearly put a knife between your ribs."

"I would have talked my way out of it. Eventually."

The Eurostar whips them to Brussels in a blur. From there, it's off to Frankfurt and finally Prague on slower trains. There's time for them to talk, strategize, remember old jokes. Once upon a time they were spotter and sniper, and the unspoken ease between them returns without much fanfare. Clint had thought the ability to trust had been thoroughly beaten out of him by the vicissitudes of life, but apparently old relationships don't die, they just...hibernate until needed again. Eliot notices it too, the next time Clint finishes one of his sentences.

"Get outta my brain, Barton."

Clint beans him in the forehead with a stale bread roll. "Old habits, soldier."

Eliot tells him all he knows about Moreau and the edifice of crime the man controls. There are a few points in the narrative where he pauses, and clenches and unclenches his fists, or gets up to pace before he can come sit and talk again. Clint waits patiently. Some things are hard to say. He knows some of what might be hidden in the gaps within Eliot's narrative, because he has plenty of his own.

Eliot talks, Clint makes notes, asks questions. They sit in another pub, and scroll through street views of cities on a black tablet-ish device with a SHIELD logo in silver on the back. For a secret agency, they sure love putting their emblem on things, Eliot thinks to himself. Aloud, he says "My tech guy would have a field day with one of those," and Clint promises to send one. "I break mine all the damn time. They won't ask questions if I request a new one."

In their small hotel room in Prague, Clint freeze-frames a slightly blurry shot of a woman in profile. She has dark red hair tucked behind her ears, and she looks delicate, elegant. There's a black soot smudge on her cheek, and blood on her ear. Back up the video and hit play, and she can be seen running a man down with no apparent effort, and shooting him in the back of the head. Then she pauses, her breathing only a little quick, her face expressionless. She turns, offering her profile to the camera, and then disappears into a side street and the video clip ends. It's one of about seven images they have managed to find. She is much-talked-about, but rarely seen.

"You know her rep," says Eliot. "She's the proverbial ghost in the night."

"She's gotta have a few boltholes. Just need to figure out where they might be."

One night, they go to a bar where Eliot has a long conversation in the storage room with a woman in her mid-fifties. She unconsciously fingers a scar on her face while she talks with him, and her face is full of hatred as she tells Eliot everything she knows about Moreau and the red-haired woman. It's not much, but it's another puzzle piece, another gap in the narrative filled.

"If you find that whore," the woman says, "kill her for me. She took my Misha, she almost took me too."

"Misha thought he could steal from Moreau," commented Eliot to Clint, later on that night. "If I were still in with him, I'd have been the one that woman wanted dead."

Clint knows better than to say anything.

Two weeks pass, and Eliot is packing his small travel duffle. He's flying out that evening for Boston. A few hours ago he and Nate had a quick phone call, and now Eliot's eager to get back and get started with the client Nate has proposed. Time to go home.

On the bed are four maps, with several locations circled in red, some in Prague, some in cities near and far. They are, at best, good guesses. Places to start. They may be safehouses for the Black Widow, they may be dead ends, or they may be traps she's left behind her. Barton has his work cut out for him.

Then again, Barton is packing a bow, crazy-ass trick arrows, a sniper rifle, and various other small arms, both on his person and in a discreet briefcase. He's got all of SHIELD's tech to back him up, accessed by the tablet-ish computer and by the bug in his ear, should he choose to use it. Apparently he's been disciplined before due to his penchant for leaving the earbug behind "accidentally." Eying the arsenal, Eliot figures that if anybody can track down the Widow, Barton has a better chance than most.

They shake hands, oddly formal after the two weeks of renewed closeness. "Good hunting," says Eliot.

"Same to you," Clint replies.

"Let me know how it goes."

Clint nods. There's some manly backslapping, and Eliot leaves, heading for the airport.

Six months later, Clint sends him an encrypted email that Hardison coos lovingly over and decrypts for him. The photo attached is of Barton, pinned on a mat and clearly laughing his fool head off. The person pinning him is not all in the shot, but part of an elegant woman's profile and a wing of red hair is visible. The text of the email says, "Thanks for the help. Tasha says hi."

Eliot chuckles and deletes the email.

Actions 


End file.
